Vegetable sorter



Dec. 5, 1961 e. L. JOUIN 3,011,635

VEGETABLE SORTER Filed Oct. 14. 1957 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG-4 47 so 53 INVENTOR.

GERMAIN L. JOUIN WWW a ATTO R N EYS G. L. JOUIN VEGETABLE SORTER Dec. 5, 1961 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Oct. 14, 1957 INVENTOR.

GERMAIN L. JOUIN ATTORNEYS extending reinforcing bars 11 and 12.

United States Patent G 3,011,635 VEGETABLE SORTER Germain Louis Jouin, Paris, France, assignor to The Hobart Manufacturing Company, Troy, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Filed Oct. 14, 1957, Ser. No. 690,087 2 Claims. (Cl. 209-107) This invention relates to apparatus for sorting sliced vegetable pieces such as potato slices intended for frying.

Whenever vegetables are sliced by machine into small pieces, such particularly as potatoes for French frying, the machine produces a major number of pieces of substantially uniform cross section, but there will also be a substantial number of small bits and fragments due to the natural irregular shape of the vegetable. If the entire batch of pieces is then fried, these smaller pieces will cook completely in less time than the larger pieces, and they therefore tend to over-cook and even burn while cooking of the larger pieces is being completed. This in turn also has a tendency to blacken and taint the oil in which the pieces are being cooked and thereby to reduce its usable life, and also the burned pieces undesirably affect the properly cooked bulk of the batch.

It is a primary object of the present invention to provide a machine of simple and economical structure and mode of operation which will effectively sort sliced vegetable pieces into a group wherein substantially all pieces are all greater than a predetermined minimum cross section and a second group containing all the small pieces which will carry out this sorting procedure as a continuous operation and which will also assure against bruising the pieces during sorting thereof.

An additional object of the invention is to provide a machine having the features outlined above in the form of a unit including its own drive and which is equally adapted for use in batch operations or in conjunction with a slicing machine for directly and continuously sorting the output of the slicing machine.

It is also an object of the invention to provide a machine of the characteristics outlined above having a minimum of component parts for easy maintenance, and particularly such a machine wherein the sorting operation is effected by means of a plurality of rolls which are constructed and rotated in such manner as to cause the vegetable pieces to travel along the nips formed thereby and which are predeterminedly spaced to cause pieces of less than a desired minimum cross section to pass through the roll nips while the larger pieces are discharged at the ends of the rolls.

Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description, the accompanying drawings and the appended claims.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a somewhat'diagrammatic perspective view illustrating the structure and mode of operation of a sorting machine in accordance with the invention and with portions broken away;

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary view of the machine of FIG. 1 in side elevation and with the drive end of the machine broken away in section approximately on the line 2-2 of FIG. 3;

FIG. 3 is a view looking from left to right at the drive end of the machine in FIG. 2 and with the end cover removed; and

FIG. 4 is a section on the line 44 of FIG. 2.

Referring to the drawings, which illustrate a preferred embodiment of'the invention, the machine comprises an elongated casing of sheet metal and generally square section which is provided with a plurality of longitudinally A mounting plate 13 closes the drive and of the casing, and a cover member 2 15 is located at the other end of the casing. A pair of wheels 16 and a single wheel 17 are secured as shown to the casing for moving the machine about to its desired location of use.

Within the casing 10 are three rolls 20, 21 and 22 which extend horizontally within the casing 10 in parallel relation as shown, the rolls and 22 being arranged side by side to form a generally vertical nip 23 and the roll 21 being located above the roll 22 to form therewith a generally horizontal nip 24'. The rolls 20 and 21 are journaled directly in the end plate 13 and cover member 15 by means of their associated spindles 20 and 21' respectively. The roll 22' is provided with an adjustable mounting for each of its spindles 22, which includes a block 25 having slots 26 therein for receiving its mounting bolts 27' to provide for radial adjustment of roll-22 with respect to both of rolls 20 and 21 to vary the widths of the respective nips 23 and 24.

A common drive is provided for all of the rolls 2022 which includes a motor 30 mounted below the casing 10 on the plate 13 on an adjustable mounting 31 and having a drive pulley 32 on its drive shaft. A drive belt 33 runs from pulley 31 to a pulley 34 on an intermediate shaft 35 adjustably mounted at 36 on the mounting plate 13. An additional drive belt 37 runs from a pulley 38 on shaft 35 to pulleys 40, 41 and 42 on the spindles 20', 21' and 22 respectively to drive all of the rolls 20-22 in the same direction. The adjustable mounting 36 provides for control of the tension in drive belt 37 in accordance with the adjusted position of roll 22 and the tension in drive belt 33 is similarly controlled by the adjustable mounting 31 for motor 30. This entire drive assembly is shown as provided with a removable cover 44.

The sliced potatoes or other vegetables to be sorted are supplied to the machine by way of a hopper 45 lo-. cated adjacent the drive end of the machine and constructed as shown in FIG. 4 to include one side wall 46 which is inclined downwardly towards the roll 20 and terminates in closely spaced relation with the center of the upper surface of the roll 20. The other side wall 47 and the end walls 48 and 49 of the hopper 45, however, terminate well above the level of the rolls 20 and 22, with the wall 47 partially overlapping the roll 21 as shown in FIG. 4. With this construction and with all the rolls rotating in the same directions indicated by the arrows in FIGS. 1 and 4, the sliced pieces 51 are delivered initially to the nip 23 of rolls 20 and 22, and those pieces which are small enough to pass through the nip and are presented to the nip. in proper alignment for passage therethrough will immediately be ejected. The desired larger pieces, as well as the small pieces which are not properly presented to the nip 23, tend to be carried over by the roll 22 to its nip 24 with the roll 21, where the same sorting action will take place and those small pieces which are properly presented to the nip 24 will be ejected therethrough. The remaining pieces will be urged back by the roll 21 toward the nip 23 to repeat the sorting process.

The surfaces of the several rolls 20-42 are provided with suitable means for both agitating thepieces as the rolls rotate and also causing the pieces to be advanced along the nips 23 and 24. For example, the three rolls are shown as having roughened surfaces, provided by a cover layer or sleeve 52 of plastic or rubber material having solid particles such as saw dust embedded therein to cause continuous tumbling of the pieces 51 as the rolls rotate, and also each roll is provided with'a spirally wound wire 53 or similar member to provide the action of a screw conveyor.

the rolls, therefore, they are sub ected to repeated classi fying actions at both of the nips 23 and 24 as described, while at the same time they are protected against engage- As the pieces advance axially of I ment with a stationary member, such as with the hopper wall 46 if the rolls rotated in the opposite directions, and the sorting action is therefore gentle as well as positive withresulting assurance against bruising or other damage to the individual vegetable pieces.

At the start of the operation, the roll 22 is adjusted to a spacing with respect to rolls 20 and 21 such that the width of each of nips 23 and 24 is substantially equal to the minimum cross section of pieces desired in the final product. With this arrangement, as the pieces 51'trave1 lengthwise of the machine, all pieces of less than the desired minimum cross section will pass through one of nips 23 and 24 and fall to the bottom of the casing, as indicated at 54. The larger pieces 55, however, will continue until they are discharged at the end of the machine, by way of a chute 56 mounted in or forming a portion of the end member 15 and discharging downwardly into any suitable removable container (not shown).

The interior of the casing is also provided with a removable tray 60 for receiving the smaller pieces 54 discharged through the nips 23 and 24. As best seen in FIG. 4, the tray 60 is slidably supported on the lower pair of reinforcing bars 11 and is provided with a handle 61. One or more clips 62 may also be provided on the inside of the front of tray 60 to snap around the underside of the adjacent bar 11 for the purpose of holding the tray removably within the casing.

This machine is therefore of very simple construction but at the same time is positive and reliable in operation as well as being adapted to sort pieces of a wide variety of sizes. Thus in the handling of potatoes cut in strips of square section for French frying, the roll 22 can be adjusted to a spacing from the rolls 29 and 21 just sufficiently less than the cross section of the large cut pieces to cause all such pieces, which will be of approximately uniform section, to be discharged at 55, while chips, slivers and like smaller pieces will be dropped in the tray 60. If the sliced vegetable pieces are primarily of a smaller size,.the adjustment of the rolls can be correspondingly changed to establish two groups of sorted pieces. The machine of the invention is also equally adapted for batch operation, with the vegetables being dumped in thehopper 45, or it can be positioned to receive directly the discharge from a slicing machine in the hopper 45, for example a machine such as shown in my copending application Serial No. 690,088, now Patent No. 2,923,337, filed of even date herewith and assigned to the same assignee as this application.

While the form of apparatus herein described constitutes a preferred embodiment of the invention, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to this precise form of apparatus, and that changes may be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention which is defined in the appended claims.

What is claimed is: 9

1. Apparatus for sorting sliced vegetable pieces to separate small pieces of less than a predetermined minielongated casing, a pair of rolls mounted in substantially horizontal parallel relation in said casing and forming a generally vertical nip, a third roll mounted in said casing above one of said pair of rolls and forming therewith a generally horizontal nip, means for adjusting the axis of mum cross section from the larger pieces, comprising an said one roll along a path coinciding with a perpendicular bisector of a line connecting the axes of the other two said rolls to establish a uniform minimum width of each of said nips substantially equal to said minimum cross section while maintaining said rolls in parallel relation to provide for passage through said nips of pieces of less than said minimum cross section, means for supplying the sliced vegetable pieces to one end of said vertical nip, meansfor rotating all of said rolls in the same direction such that the upper surfaces of said pair of rolls move toward said third roll and thereby cause the pieces to be urged toward said horizontal nip by said pair of rolls and then to be urged back toward said vertical nip by said third roll, and means on the surfaces of said rolls responsive to said rotation thereof to cause the pieces to advance therealong while being urged back and forth between said hips and thereby to elfect progressive sorting of the pieces by causing ejection through said nips of the pieces of less than said minimum cross section.

2. Apparatus for sorting sliced vegetable pieces to separate small pieces of less than a predetermined minimum cross section from the larger pieces, comprising an elongated casing, first and second rolls mounted in substantially horizontal parallel relation in said casing and forming a generally vertical nip, a third roll mounted in said casing above said second roll and forming therewith a generally horizontal nip, means for establishing a uniform minimum width of each of said nips substantially equal to said minimum cross section while maintaining said rolls in parallel relation to provide for passage through said nips of pieces of less than said minimum cross section, means defining a hopper supported on said casing above said rolls for supplying the sliced vegetable pieces to one end of said vertical nip, one of said hopper walls having its lower edge in closely spaced relation above and substantially parallel with said first roll, the opposite said hopper wall being positioned between said one wall and said third roll and having the lower edge thereof spaced substantially above the level of said horizontal nip, means for rotating all of said rolls in the same direction such that the upper surfaces of said first and second rolls move away from said one hopper wall and toward said third roll and thereby cause the pieces to be urged toward said horizontal nip and then to be urged backtoward said vertical nip by said third roll, and means on the surfaces of said rolls responsive to said rotation thereof to cause the pieces to advance therealong while being urged back and forth between said nips and thereby to effect progressive sorting of the pieces by causing ejection through said nips of the pieces of less than said minimum cross section.

References Cited inthe file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS France July 15, 1929 il will 

